We were lucky to catch up with Smitha Magal recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Smitha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

In so many ways, Bharatanatyam has been for me the best investment of time, patience, effort and hard work. Bharatanatyam is one of the oldest classical dance styles of India. Devotional in spirit, Bharatanatyam is highly stylized and sophisticated in its technique. It is known for its strong footwork, highly coordinated movements and facial expressions. My mother enrolled me to learn this dance form to fulfill her unfulfilled childhood dream of learning Bharatanatyam. At that age of nine, I was most uninterested. Dance class was a drudgery for me! The technique of this dance form is very intense requiring hours upon hours of rigorous practice. I just did not want to be bothered with all that work/effort. But my mother’s objective was simple. Her mantra was “it doesn’t matter if you don’t ever perform, I just want you to attend the classes and be in the presence of the grandeur that Bharatanatyam is and train with the very best”. I have been blessed to be a disciple of the living legend Professor Sudharani Raghupathy. I am not only grateful for what Sudha Aunty (that’s what all her students call her) taught me but for being ever so patient with me during my young, ignorant formative years. Sudha Aunty and my mother were a formidable team. And so, whether I liked it or not, I was hauled off to dance classes thrice a week. By the time I was 15 years old, my lack of interest turned into a slightly excited but tolerant interest… I was getting to put on make-up, wear beautiful costumes, perform and being recognized as a “good dancer”! What’s not to like! Sometime between ages 15 and 21, I realized my life revolved around dance classes and everything Bharatanatyam. By the time I was 21 years old, Bharatanatyam captivated me completely. It was what I wanted – and no longer something my mother wanted! Whether or not I was going to pursue this creative/artistic path professionally, I knew Bharatanatym opened the avenue for my journey Within. Till today it remains to be my “Meditation in Motion”. It has carried me to the heights of happiness. It has taught me surrender. It has taught me life lessons. It is my Anchor. It has made me the person I am today. I am especially grateful Bharatanatyam “chose me”. Alongside this learning, I also took piano lessons, studied the theory of Western classical music and passed several of the exams conducted by the Trinity College of Music, London with distinction.

After high school, I graduated from the University of Madras, India with a Bachelor’s degree in Nutrition & Dietetics. I also recall being sad I did not secure admission to pursue a degree in architecture.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Growing up in a traditional Indian home, meeting and marrying someone arranged by the family was a norm. A norm that I followed even though I was very torn. I was very afraid to leave India. I was very afraid to leave the womb of this dance form. A dance form that had a soft yet strong hold on me. But I went with the flow, and some thirty plus years ago migrated to these United States to join my husband, clutching my Guru’s advice to settle down in my new life first before anything else. No matter that those were the days when I did not have access to recorded music specific to dance, I would still practice for at least two hours a day – in my kitchen, the only space without carpet and enough room to dance. With the music playing in my head. It was the only way to stay in touch.

A couple years after I migrated to the US, when my first born was six weeks old, at the gentle persuasion of my Guru, I began teaching Bharatanatyam to five young girls. SILAMBAM was born in that same kitchen. In alliance with my alma mater Shree Bharatalaya. SILAMBAM uses the same method of structured and disciplined teaching in dance as followed in Shree Bharatalaya. The students also learn to sing the dance items to ragam (melody) and thalam (beat cycle) and its meaning. Senior students are taught nattuvangam (the art of wielding the cymbals for dance). The goal of SILAMBAM is not only to make the young students good dancers, but also to mold them into cultured and artistic individuals who are confident youth, team players and better world citizens with high moral values. Another unique aspect of SILAMBAM is that it is part of a network of dance schools around the world run by former students of Shree Bharatalaya.

Over these years, my students & I have been invited to perform at various venues across Ohio. Many of these performances were commissioned works. To mention a few – the Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Mount Vernon University, the Ohio State University, the Inter Faith Association of Central Ohio, Columbus Sister Cities International, Cultural Festivals in the Ohio Valley, Dhvani Ohio and Vindhya Cultural Association. The performances include fundraiser programs to help the victims of the Tsunami of 2005, Asha Ray of Hope, Chinmaya Mission and the Tamil Nadu Foundation. Our workshops and lecture demonstrations include those presented at Lucent Technologies, AsPIRE, an Employee Network Group in JP Morgan & Chase, local City Schools, BalletMet, Nationwide, OhioDance, the Ohio State University and Kenyon College. We have also benefited from day long to week long, immersive Bharatanatyam camps, conducted by acclaimed visiting teachers & performers from India and other parts of the world. I have trained students and presented them in their Rangapraveshams/solo debut performances. As a visiting faculty I have taught Bharatanatyam in the Department of Dance, Drama & Film, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

My dance studio was/is the basement of my home. In 2008, I received a letter from the City stating that they received complaints from neighbors regarding cars coming into the neighborhood, traffic/parking etc. I am not one to break rules and to realize that I may have done just that, did not sit well with me. It sent me scuttling into my rabbit hole and I was ready to call it quits. Although with much trepidation, I took immediate action and temporarily suspended all my classes. I needed time to process what just happened and come up with a different plan. I don’t think I will ever forget how I felt for several months after receiving that letter. Alongside many fears, the future of the classes, what would my students do etc took center stage, I went about exploring other avenues. I truly believe that when the need is real/serving a higher purpose, the Almighty sends us help. And this time the help came in the form of parents of students not only exploring avenues on my behalf but also one of them offering the ballroom of the hotel they owned as a space to conduct classes until such time a more suitable space was found. They refused to allow me to pay rent. I taught in that space for about 10 months! Looking back, I know now that the “lemon” thrown at me in 2008 was the first necessary/crucial ingredient for the “refreshing lemonade” I now enjoy even more!

Have you ever had to pivot?

I am yet to meet someone who has not needed to pivot since March 2020!! Like countless others the world over, the pandemic brought me to my knees. Other than surrendering to the Order of the Universe and going with Its flow, there was little else to do. Many of my colleagues and friends had been using various online platforms to teach long before it became the hour of the day. I had attempted online teaching in the past, but the few seconds lag threw me off. I sing the song/recite the steps the students are dancing to. On an online platform, there is a lag of a few seconds – I would sing/recite and only a few seconds later would I see the student/s executing that step. Given the uncertainty of the pandemic, I had to either get on with online teaching or completely stop teaching. There wasn’t another choice. That choice was a turning point for me. Continuing to teach, experience some sense of normalcy and to offer that same to the students is what kept us going and sustained. The weekly classes allowed for continued progress. “Dancing with” their peers and chatting with them provided a safe space for students to go through the shut down without fear/anxiety to the extent possible. It also taught the students that the buck stopped with them! In in-person classes it was easy to follow the student standing before them. So, even if they forgot something or didn’t come prepared for class, it was very easy to get back into the sequence. Where as online, they had nobody to copy from! This was a huge learning curve for them and they met that challenge so well! On a personal level, I learned something huge. I learned the art of focused focus on two parallel thoughts/lines. One, I had to sing/recite the steps accurately even as I had to watch the student/s execute the step two/three seconds later and two, ensure they did it on beat while I had already moved on to the next beat. In other words, the student/s were always “behind”. And it was my job to hold my own in order to ensure that both of us didn’t get lost/off beat! On a Spiritual level, both those parallel trains of thought led to the same One. Ever Grateful for this learning.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: silambam.dublin
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
Gajo Gajaananan, Amitava Sarkar, Lingam Studios, Srinivas Magal